"I arise every morning torn between the desire to save the world and the desire to savor the world. It makes it hard to plan the day." --E. B. White

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

New From The Cornell Lab

Two big events to pass along from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. First, the Lab's quarterly magazine, Living Bird, is now available on-line at LivingBird.org.

Did I mention it's an award-winning magazine? It's no wonder, with regular columns by the likes of David Wilcove, Jack Conner, Mel White, and Pete Dunne - all four among my favorite writers, especially when it comes to all things birds. Feature articles that take you around the world, not just through the lyrical writing, but images that leave you speechless, placing you right in the action. All future issues will be archived for easy access, and all future issues will include web extras, additional images that wouldn't fit in the print version, and video (video!) from the Macaulay Library.

Second, a couple giant leaps forward from eBird: bulk uploading of past observations and the addition of checklists from the entire western hemisphere. Yep, you can submit your historical observations in a few relatively easy steps, increasing the usefulness of observations collected by birders from the past decades, not just the past few years. And they can be submitted from everywhere in the New World, everywhere between the Arctic and Antarctica.

Read more about the Data Import Tool and South America beta-testing, dig out those old notebooks and checklists from wherever you have been birding, "on the world's birdiest continent (South America) or its most birdless (Antarctica)," and let the fun begin!

3 comments:

It is amazing what our lives use to be like 10 years ago when internet was just games! Ok, 15 years ago! But still, our diaries, checklist, banking, tv shows, and magazines are all done online! Thanks for the sharing!

Hi, mon@rch - it is amazing, and I'm always glad to see the Internet put to good use, like engaging citizen scientists, allowing students of all ages to answer questions (especially by querying a database directly), and to spread information to all corners of the globe. I've always liked the way Living Bird (and other magazines in that genre) allows you to experience far-off places to you if you're not lucky enough to visit.

About My Blog

I write about nature and the outdoors, mostly relating to our local patch of the world in the Southern Tier of New York, but also our periodic travels to elsewhere. As a "mad-keen birder" I mostly focus on birds, as a father I often focus on nature seen through the eyes of a child. Anything that arouses my curiosity is fair game.

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